Third through eighth grade students packed the PE Gym at SMSU to hear from keynote speaker Daniel Bernstrom, an award-winning picture-book author and English instructor at Minnesota West Community and Technical College, before breaking off into groups to attend a variety of workshops throughout the day.

Bernstrom, who said he grew up with reading struggles he worked to overcome, spoke to the students about the idea of using compost as a metaphor for how the process of writing sparks.

“Compost is stuff you use to make the ground healthy. It’s all the micronutrients, it’s all the little bits that the plants need to grow and to thrive … The peels from your carrots, if you take all those things and you put them together, even the leaves that are lying around and you’re like, ‘Oh, they were beautiful once, and now they’re on the ground, and now they’re worthless,'” Bernstrom said. “No, actually, they’re very, very important. Without the leaves, you don’t have nitrogen, things don’t get green. Even the yucky stuff that you don’t want to touch, all of that is so important. You can’t leave that out, because if you do leave that out, nothing’s going to grow.”

In their breakout classes, students were encouraged to hone in on their creativity and try new ideas or tactics they haven’t done so before.

Daniel Bernstrom, an award-winning picture-book author and English instructor at Minnesota West Community and Technical College, gives a keynote presentation at the SWWC Conference for Young Writers Tuesday morning.

Among the numerous classes offered, some consisted of writing comic books, pitching creative writing ideas, storytelling techniques, using description to engage an audience, creating story plots, performing sketch comedy, writing poetry, learning television news and more.

“I love telling stories … I wish that when I was a child, someone told me that anything and everything that was going to happen to me in my life, would serve my writing,” Bernstrom said. “Every single thing that happens to you in your life from this point on, that’s what you’re going to use to become a great writer.”

Bernstrom went over the process from start to finish on one of his books, ‘A Bear, a Man, and a Donut Van,’ and how ideas came to life and the work of collaborating with his editor and illustrator.

“There are things that are happening to you right now. You throw away things that you think are, ‘Oh, that happened yesterday, that happened in class, that teacher had this lesson over, it’s so boring, I’m never going to use this in my life,’ … I am here to tell you that all of those things are really important in my writing today,” Bernstrom said. “You take that stuff, you take your life, the conversations with friends, even this moment, the teacher talking to you about writing — You take it all, and you’re going to use it to sprinkle on the dead white page, and make something come alive. But, you have to get to this point first. You have to understand everything that’s happening to you now, every conversation, every place you visit, every lesson in school, it matters.”

There were 17 total school districts from around the region that participated in this year’s Conference for Young Writers. A few included Tracy, Minneota, Pipestone, Willmar, Jackson County Central, Kerkhoven-Murdock-Sunburg and more.

Area students engage in a writing lesson in one of the Young Writers Conference workshops on Tuesday.

SWWC also has its annual creative writing contest going on, where students can submit a piece of work under fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction. Submissions are due by Jan. 16.

The Science and Nature Conference will also be taking place again later in the spring on May 12, where area students will come back to SMSU for a day of observing and experimenting. The conference is for kindergarten through eighth grade students, with registrations for the event due by April 7.

Encouraging the students to be observant with their senses, hold onto the moments and turn things surrounding them into a story, Bernstrom also told the students that writing comes from within, even when it seems impossible.

“Each of you are incredibly different, completely unique. And, because you’re so unique, you will take yourself, wire yourself, wire your own ideas, and cause something beautiful to enter into the world. A place that people are going to want to come, stop and visit and say, ‘Wow, look at that,'” Bernstrom said. “Because, you saw the world in a beautiful, different way … What I’m saying is that all of you, all of you matters.”

A handful of students participate in a writing lesson in one of the Young Writers Conference workshops on Tuesday.